Refugee breathing in the shadow
of a balcony dons the morning
peen of hammers. To the East
the great leader is acting the part
of papa stork gliding southward
down a quiescence called sky
White glider white unitard
nary a snigger from the TV thrall
Then my lovely assistant Penance
presents himself waving a cock
Are you crying, our master
in your new tall black boots?
Take the ferry and then take the bus
I have to go home and be like a girl
who fills herself with rage cooking
all tympanum, no story, a human
meniscus shaken by the foghorn's
victorious fart. Of course one wants
to arrive as Beethoven's circus sadness
not the hippo summoned only to drop her jaw
and accept and chomp a lettuce
A cage-shadow sags from the black
edge of a balcony. Each day
I'm invented by a bed and pants
The Clowns of Aftermath Regale Me
Push the crown of your head through the heart-
shaped hole formed by the two yellow flaps
of the inflatable vest, your face will gamely follow
He kept repeating the word "love"
but with a soft “v” so it sounded like “law”
The nurse kept picking thorns from his scalp
Filling out the Pain Survey
--Just put "yes" for everything
Our eyes receive the renewed gray
speeding past us. Thank you
for your attention and with a roar we
would love to be martyred
and not come here bearing a candle
tattooed in green on the right bicep
a tiny green heart wizening down one instep
a vague bruise orphaned in an armpit
Men swing themselves past alfalfa
A broad red flag is snapping
over a statue with a cocked right knee
I love to swim in the ocean
Metal works its way out
Every day I’m practicing
I draw a tree, a cat, fruit, a rabbit
I was so happy in the sea
Jennifer MacKenzie's first full-length book, My Not-My Soldier, was published in 2014 as part of Fence Books Modern Poets Series. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Similar Peaks, Lungfull, Better Magazine, and the Blazevox anthology Poets for Living Waters. Her prose on Syria and its neighbors has appeared in the Huffington Post, Guernica, Killing the Buddha, and Religion and Politics. She lives in the Bronx where she teaches composition and journalism at Lehman College.